Rural Heritage April/May 2026

An Unlikely Journey

by Anna Knapp-Peck L ea Patrice Fales and Brian Alfonsi are unlikely farmers and oxen teamsters. Brian grew up in Ray Township, Michigan, outside of Detroit. He was surrounded by rural land but had no direct contact with raising livestock. Brian was interested in building mechanical things at a young age and was able to explore these interests in his father’s machine shop. This led Brian to a career with General Motors where he built concept vehicles for ten years. Lea grew up in Florida. She would have liked to be a horse girl, but living in an apartment with her single mother didn’t allow for that dream. Their biggest pet was a cat. Lea went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and received her master’s degree in art. As a child, Brian and his sister would visit their elderly neighbors with their grandfather. Those neighbors were brothers Ed and Bob Schleif. They told Brian stories of working draft horses on their farm in the 1920s and 1930s. When the brothers passed away, Brian’s grandfather inherited their farm. After Brian became an adult, his grandfather gave him a collection of Schleif family photos. There were pictures of the brothers farming with their horses. It was peaceful and seemed to be a fulfilling lifestyle, which inspired Brian to reconsider how he was living his life. In 2014, Brian and Lea met on social media. Living in Orlando and Brooklyn taught Lea her life needed to take a different direction. After graduating from the Pratt Institute in 2016, she found her way to Michigan, and Brian. The land prices were too high being closer to Detroit, so they began looking for farmland further away in Ray, where they settled on 18 acres. Brian is still working as a machinist and now has a shop on the homestead. Lea runs a small publishing company called Pasture Pine Press, also based on the homestead. Once they had property, Brian and Lea began to research and take classes to develop their farming journey. As a couple, they assumed they would be farming with draft horses. They took a Draft Horse

Basics class with Donn Hewes at Tillers International, and lessons at a local stable to learn more about horse care. In 2021, Lea spent the summer driving carriage horses at Acadia National Park in Maine. For all the time and resources invested, neither Brian nor Lea could decide what breed of horse to get. In 2022, Lea took a class, Farming with Draft Animals at Tillers International. Something very unexpected happened; she fell in love with oxen, which were an alternative draft animal power the couple hadn’t considered. Some of the benefits of having cattle on their small acreage is that the cattle could provide draft power, meat, and milk. Brian was easily convinced and the journey with oxen began. After much research, the couple chose the Randall breed of cattle, which had a medium size, good temperament, and was cold hardy enough to meet their needs. A reputable farm was found through the Randall Cattle Registry, and a deposit was sent for two bull calves. Like all things in farming, nothing goes as planned; that year the farm had all heifers. Eventually the farm offered Brian and Lea a bull and two heifers, with the idea that they could breed their own oxen in the future. Virginia and Hannah, the heifers, and Elmer, the bull, were brought home in the summer of 2023. Using what they had, the couple trained the heifers as oxen. Virginia has done work moving manure and compost and bringing out firewood. Hannah has also started in yoke and harness. The cows were bred on the farm and 90 days before they were due, they were no longer used for draft work. The training focus changed to get them ready to be milked. Working with heifers, especially Virginia, has taught Brian and Lea many valuable lessons. One thing they will do differently in the future is take their time. They feel Virginia was asked to do too much work early on and it overwhelmed her. She wasn’t working physically beyond her limits, but the couple feels that she would have progressed better with more time to develop. In Lea’s words, “After having some time to reflect on our initial training

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